FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DRUG BUST - PAGE 2

By Tim Gaynor PHOENIX, May 30 (Reuters) - The attorney for an Arizona mother jailed in Mexico after marijuana was found under her bus seat said on Thursday that video evidence showed she had boarded the vehicle without the drugs and expressed the hope she could be freed by the weekend. Yanira Maldonado, a Mormon and the mother of seven children, was arrested on May 22 after Mexican soldiers searched a bus on which she was traveling with her husband, Gary, and discovered some 12 pounds (5 kilograms)

Police officials said Thursday they put a major cocaine distribution network on the Northwest Side out of business with the arrests of 17 people on drug and drug-related charges. "It's one of the largest groups we've ever arrested," said Chicago Police Cmdr. William Callaghan. In addition to the 17 arrested Thursday, police have warrants for three more individuals and plan to continue the investigation, Callaghan said. The drug bust was the result of a yearlong investigation involving several police departments, the Cook County state's attorney's office, and U.S. Customs officials, said Chicago Police Supt.

A 61-year-old North Side man was charged Sunday with attempted murder, aggravated battery and possession of a controlled substance after he allegedly shot a Chicago police officer during a drug bust, officials said. The suspect, Albert Hogan, of 5056 1/2 N. Kenmore Ave., was being held Sunday night at the Belmont Area headquarters, police said. Hogan was arrested about 1 p.m. Sunday at 846 W. Montrose Ave. after he allegedly shot Officer Alex Horstein, 35, in the leg through the door of what police believe is his daughter's apartment, said Sgt. Vernis Jones of the Belmont Area's violent crimes unit.

In an attempt to plug a hole in the U.S.-Mexico drug-trafficking enforcement effort, the U.S. Justice and Homeland Security Departments entered a new interagency agreement Thursday that they hope will allow them to better target and apprehend cross-border drug smugglers. But at least one influential senator said the agreement did not go nearly far enough to address long-standing turf battles between the two departments, which he says are undermining the campaign to counter increasingly violent Mexican drug cartels.

Afghan counternarcotics officials said Wednesday that they uncovered 260 tons of hashish hidden in Afghanistan's Kandahar province in what one U.S. official said appears to be the world's biggest drug bust. The hashish was worth more than $400 million and would have netted the Taliban about $14 million. ---------- Page compiled from Tribune news services

An American and nine others have been charged with attempting to traffic more than 2.2 tons of cocaine through a Venezuelan airport, the government said Saturday. Venezuelan police arrested the gang on June 9 as its members loaded the cocaine bound for Africa onto a private plane at the airport on Margarita Island. Those charged in the drug bust were Robert Charles Gagnon, identified as an American, two Mexicans, a Congolese man and six Venezuelans, the Public Ministry said.

A Woodstock man was in custody Wednesday after Chicago police found cocaine valued at more than $1 million in his car after an anonymous complaint of a suspicious vehicle in the South Lawndale neighborhood, according to a Police Department spokesman. "This was not your everyday drug bust," said news affairs officer Timothy Jackson. At 9:37 p.m. Tuesday, officers investigating the complaint found Carlos J. Rivera, of the 500 block of Central Parkway Road, lying in the backseat of a 1996 Chevy Lumina, trying to access the trunk through a fold-down backrest, Jackson said.

Police arrested 11 members of the Cicero Insane Vice Lords street gang in a drug bust that shut down a West Side spot where dealers made up to $8,000 a day, police said Friday. Police made 14 undercover buys in a three-month investigation dubbed Operation Full Service, where they staked out a four-block area near West Ferdinand Street and North Lavergne Avenue in Austin, authorities said. In the area, gang members sold crack cocaine, heroin and marijuana, police said. Most of the drug sales took place outside a grocery store in the 4900 block of West Ferdinand Street and the Hubbard Park Playground nearby, said Sgt. Robert Cargie, a police spokesman.

Chicago police announced charges against 11 people Thursday in a drug bust that targeted a public housing complex on the South Side, police said. Ten people were charged with criminal drug conspiracy and one person was charged with delivery of a controlled substance in connection with Operation Pick-Up II, a five-month investigation at Randolph Tower in the 6200 block of South Calumet Avenue, according to a statement. Seven people are in custody, and warrants have been issued for the remaining four people.

Chicago narcotics officers Saturday morning seized 427 kilograms of Mexican cocaine worth $53 million, police said. Frank Smith, 42, of 4110 S. Western Ave. was charged with felony possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Smith allegedly was loading bundles into the trunk of a car in the 1900 block of South Western Avenue at 6:40 a.m., police said.